We extend an invitation to come visit us at Nirvana Farm, the home of Endeavour Alpacas, along the Curry’s Post Road, KZN Midlands.
We will be open to the public on the first Sunday of each month, with a nominal entrance fee of R30.00 per adult. Hours are from 10h00 to 14h00.
Search “Nirvana Farm, Howick” on Google Maps or GPS 29 deg 20 min 52.56 sec South 30 deg 07 min 15.77 sec East.
Alpaca products will be available for sale, “meet the Alpaca”, and learn more about these mystical creatures.
We are available and welcome bookings for schools, groups, clubs and educational /social events. Please make inquiries well in advance to avoid disappointment.
Wendy is our resident Alpaca Guardian, she is also the KZN representative of the South African Alpaca Breeders Society, and is always eager to share her knowledge and experience with you, our valued visitor, and take you on walks inside the herd of mothers and cria.
She has first hand experience living among these beautiful, gentle animals, looking after them, tending to them in their time of need, and has even assisted a few times in complications during birthing, or as is commonly known in the Alpaca world, “unpacking.” The above picture shows Wendy with her hands-on approach having just assisted with a difficult unpacking.
So, do some research in your own time, and challenge Wendy on her knowledge of Alpacas, lets see if we can get her to blow some bubbles.
This is the day our beloved Cheyenne was born. We snuck out to town to do some emergency grocery shopping. Sour worms, 2 minute noodles etc.
When we arrived back we found her lying in a pool of blood. I was duly told not to get my hopes up. Weak, from not feeding, we were not sure how long she had been lying there, it was a blazing hot day. To cut a short story long, she did not feed from her mom no matter how hard we tried to prop her up underneath mommy, so we ended up bottle feeding the little girl. This may sound all romantic to you city dwellers, but try feeding every 3 hours, day and night. After a few days I was not in a happy space. I presented her with an ultimatum, “drink from your mother, or go and eat some grass like a normal Alpaca”. And I trudged off hoping she would not follow me again looking for a bottle.
Well, when I came out she was suckling, the happiest day of my life. I marched inside, heaved a huge sigh of relief, collapsed on the bed and slept for hours knowing she was going to be ok.
That was not the end of her dramatics.
3 months later, as I was about to make the weekly trek to Durban, a Sunday night of course, we saw her leg was severely broken and both bones were protruding out of her leg. She was still hobbling behind the rest of the herd.
Tune in next week for episode 2. And now something from our advertisers…..
Episode 2.
We hurtled off to the large animal veterinary hospital, all eager that she would be fixed good and proper.
This is where we once again found ourselves at that all too familiar T junction in life.
‘Nothing we can do, its best to euthanize her.”
Many words sprung to mind, all beginning with the letter F. Plan B, shoot over to the small animal veterinary hospital. This was not your ordinary cat or dog injury, this was our baby Cheyenne.
More looks of horror at our request, but at least there was a glimmer of hope; they would attempt a repair job.
2 vets, an assistant or 2, Wendy, myself, a few books and access to Google in the operating theater. That is all that was needed to do the repair job.
Now the long wait for the bones to mend while we bottle fed her water, red grass and assisted her to use the toilet in a bucket. Charming.
And now we have 3 Jack Russell living in our kitchen for a few months, the rehabilitation process went well.
